Course Syllabus: Contemporary Barcelona and Its Cultural History

Transcription

1 1 Course Syllabus: Contemporary Barcelona and Its Cultural History Language of Instruction: English Professor: Stephen Jacobson Room: TBA Professor s Contact and Office Hours: Mondays, 11: (office ). Course Contact Hours: 45 Recommended Credit: 5 ECTS credits Course Prerequisites: None Language Requirements: None Course Description: Throughout its history, the city of Barcelona has undergone dramatic and intriguing changes. From an industrial city characterized by textile factories and low life expectancies that gained an international reputation as a hotbed of working-class agitation, it became transformed into a cosmopolitan city within a globalized world, boasting an enviable urban plan adorned with gems from the fin-de-siècle modernist movement to contemporary international architects. This course will penetrate and analyze this glossy and gritty city by focusing on its cultural history during the past two centuries. In so doing, we will employ crossdisciplinary methods. In addition to readings in history, we will survey perspectives from urban, Hispanic, and cultural studies as well as anthropology and sociology. We will combine the critical study of "high" or "bourgeois" culture with an analysis of popular, working-class, immigrant and consumer culture. The course will include a number of on-site visits so that students interact dynamically with the urban environment. We will also discuss contemporary issues facing the city today.

2 2 Learning Objectives: At the end of the course, the student: will have acquired survey knowledge of the history of Barcelona from the Enlightenment to the present. will have developed critical skills needed to analyze high and popular culture, art, and architecture in an urban environment. will have become versed in contemporary issues facing Barcelonese today. Course Workload: The course is divided into lectures, discussions, and field studies. Since this is an intensive summer course, students should be prepared to read between 100 to 200 pages per week. Methods of Instruction: The course includes both lectures and field studies. Two-hour class sessions are normally divided into one-hour lecture and one-hour seminar. Students are expected to treat field studies in the same manner as lectures, by taking notes and assuming the requisite academic responsibilities. In addition, students will be required to undertake one field study on their own. They will be required to take a guided tour of the Palau de la Música ( or visit the Hospital Sant Pau ( for which they will be reimbursed. Failure to attend will be counted as a classroom absence. Books for Purchase: All required readings will be contained in a coursepack available for purchase. Method of Assessment

3 3 Class Participation: 33 percent Paper: 33 percent Final Exam: 33 percent Topics Covered: 1. The Barcelona Model 2. The Making of a Nation 3. The Industrious City 4. The Industrial City 5. The Cosmopolitan City 6. The Defeated City 7. The Resurgent City Absence Policy: Absences Up to two (2) absences Three (3) absences Four (4) absences Five (5) absences or more Penalization No penalization. 1 point subtracted from final grade (on a 10 point scale) 2 points subtracted from final grade (on a 10 point scale) The student receives an INCOMPLETE for the course The UPF Summer School attendance policy does not distinguish between justified or unjustified absences. The student is deemed responsible to manage his/her absences. Emergency situations (hospitalization, family emergency, etc.) will be analyzed on a case by case basis by the Academic Director of the UPF Summer School. Classroom Norms: No food or drink is permitted. There will be a ten-minute break during the class. Students may not consult mobile phones or use computers in class, except for taking notes and following powerpoint presentations.

4 4 Course Contents and Required Readings: Session 1: Course Description (Mon, 26 June) Review of syllabus, classroom requirements, and expectations. Overview of course contents. Session 2: The Barcelona Model I (Tues, 27 June) Introduction to the Barcelona Model. Is there a relationship between the Barcelona Model and Catalan secessionism? Reading: Mellissa Rossi, The Barcelona Model, Newsweek International (2 February 2004); Lisa Abend, "Barcelona Warns Madrid: Pay Up or Catalonia Leaves Spain," Time International (11 September 2012); Raphael Minder, "Catalonia Overwhelmingly Votes for Independence From Spain in a Straw Poll," New York Times (9 November 2014), and "Artur Mas, Former Catalan Leader, Is Barred From Holding Office," New York Times (13 March 2017); and Tobias Buck, "Madrid Considers 'Nuclear Option' to Halt Catalan Referendum" Financial Times (26 May 2017). Session 3: The Barcelona Model II (Wednesday, 28 June) Urban planners and the Barcelona Model. Balancing cosmopolitan ideas and local identities. Reading: Lawrence A. Herzog, City of Architects : Public Space and the Resurgence of Barcelona in Return to the Center: Culture, Public Space, and City Building in the Global Era, ed. Lawrence A. Herzog (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), ; Antoni Luna-Garcia, Just another Coffee! Milking the Barcelona Model, Marketing a Global Image, and the Restoration of Local Identities, in Consuming the Entrepreneurial City: Image, Memory, Spectacle, ed. Anne M. Cronin and Kevin Hetherington (London: Routledge, 2007), Session 4: The Barcelona Model III (Thursday, 29 June) Globalization and commodification: Barcelona in a post-industrial economy and the problem of tourist-dependency

5 5 Reading: Mari Paz Balibrea, Urbanism, Culture, and the Post-Industrial city: Challenging the Barcelona Model, in Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2, no. 2 (2001): ; Ian Mount, "Besieged by Tourists, Barcelona Rolls up the Welcome Mat," Financial Times (August 7, 2015). 35e55cbae175.html#axzz44yDELixT. "Radical Mayors of Madrid and Barcelona take on Tourism and Luxury," Newsweek (8 July 2015). Session 5: The Barcelona Model IV (Monday, 3 July) Critiquing the model: poverty and immigration. Movie: Alejandro González Iñarritu, Biutiful, 2 hours, 28 minutes. Session 6: The Barcelona Model V (Tues, 4 July) Reading: Benjamin Fraser, "A Biutiful City: Alejandro González Iñárritu's Filmic Critique of 'The Barcelona Model," Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, v. 9, no. 2 (2012): Session 7: The Barcelona Model VI (Wed, 5 July) Complicating the Model: the inner city versus the outer barris; the twentieth versus the twenty-first century; environmental issues and the problem of sustainability. Reading: Ismael Blanco, "Does a Barcelona Model Really Exist? Periods, Territories and Actors in the Process of Urban Transformation," Local Government Studies, 35, no. 3 (2009): ; Mónica Degen and Marísol García, "The Transformation of the Barcelona Model: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration, and Governance," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36.5 (2012): Session 8: The Making of a Nation (Thurs, 6 July) Medieval and early modern roots of contemporary modernity. Field Study: Museu d Història de Catalunya ( Hand in papers. Session 9: The Industrious City (Mon, 10 July)

6 6 Enlightenment Barcelona: textiles, prints, coffee, tobacco, and sugar. Urban romanticism in poetry, art, and architecture. Reading: Robert Hughes, Selections from "Blind with a Love for Language," ; and Going to the Fair, in Barcelona (New York: Vintage, 1992), , Session 10: The Metropolitan City (Tues, 11 July) The bourgeois spatial and cultural transformation of the city. From revolutionary liberalism to Catalan nationalism Reading: Joan Ramon Resina, The Bourgeois City, in Barcelona s Vocation of Modernity: Rise and Decline of an Urban Image (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), Session 11: The Industrial City I (Wed, 12 July) Visit to the Barcelona Industrial Museum, Oliva Artés ( Session 12: The Industrial City II (Thurs, 13 July) Barcelona industry becomes cosmopolitan: The World's Fair of Reading: Stephen Jacobson, Interpreting Municipal Celebrations of Nation and Empire: The Barcelona Universal Exhibition of 1888, in Nationalism and the Reshaping of Urban Communities, ed. William Whyte and Oliver Zimmer (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), Session 13: The Cosmopolitan City I (Mon, 17 July) The architectural and artistic boom. Reading: Colm Toiben, City without Walls, A Dream of Gaudí, Picasso s Quarter, and "Miró in Barcelona," in Homage to Barcelona (London: Simon & Schuster, 1990), Session 14: The Cosmopolitan City II (Tuesday, 18 July) The "roaring twenties" in Barcelona.

7 7 Reading: Robert Davidson, Vantage Point: Barcelona s Mirador ( ) in Jazz Age Barcelona (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), Session 15: The Cosmopolitan City III (Wednesday, 19 July) The zenith of the cosmopolitan era: The World's Fair of 1929 Field Study: Visit to the World's Fair site of Session 16: The Cosmopolitan City IV (Thursday, 20 July) "The Rose of the Fire": Anarchism and republican popular culture in the bourgeois city. Reading: Chris Ealham, The Making of a Divided City and Mapping the Working Class City in Class, Culture, and Conflict in Barcelona, (London: Routledge, 2004), Session 17: The Defeated City (Monday, 24 July) Barcelona, the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist Repression. Street, youth, and immigrant culture amid urban poverty. Readings: Juan Marsé, Shanghai Nights, trans. Nick Castor (London: Vintage Books, 2007; original edition, 1998), Session 18: The Resurgent City (Tuesday, 25 July) Student, popular, and immigrant culture during the transition to democracy The Barcelona Model in Historical Perspective. Catch-up day, lecture, and review for final exam. Session 19: Final Exam (Wed, 26 July) Session 20: Concluding Matters (Thursday, 27 July)

8 8 Recommended bibliography: In addition to the articles, chapters, and books cited above, students are encouraged to consult the following sources on their own. James S. Amelang, Comparing Cities? A Barcelona Model, Urban History 34 (2007): Josep Maria Anaud et al., Barcelona Contemporánea ( ) / Contemporary Barcelona ( ) (Barcelona, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, 1996) Joan Busquets, Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005) Antònia Casellas, Barcelona s Urban Landscape: The Historical Making of a Tourist Product, Journal of Urban History, 35, no. 6 (2009): Brian Chalkey and Stephen Essex, Urban Development through Hosting International Events: The Barcelona Olympic Games, Planning Perspectives, 14 (1999): Robert A. Davidson, Observing the City, Mediating the Mountain: Mirador and the 1929 International Exhibition of Barcelona, in Visualizing Spanish Modernity, ed. Susan Larson and Eva Woods (Oxford: Berg, 2005), Chris Ealham, The Myth of the Maddened Crowd: Class, Culture and Space in the Revolutionary Urbanistic Project in Barcelona, , in Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Michael Eaude, Catalonia: A Cultural History (Oxford: Signal Books, 2007) A.G. Espuche et. al., Modernization and Urban Beautification: The 1888 Barcelona World Fair, in Planning Perspectives 6, no. 2 (1991). Féliz Fanès, Joan Miró 1929: High and Low Culture in Barcelona and Paris, Visualizing Spanish Modernity, ed. Susan Larson and Eva Woods (Oxford: Berg, 2005),

9 9 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Barcelona. A Thousand Years of the City s Past (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991) Helen Graham, Against the State: A Geneology of Barcelona s May Days (1937), European History Quarterly, 29, no. 4 (1999): J.E.R. Hargreaves, Freedom for Catalonia? Catalan Nationalism, Spanish Identity and the Barcelona Olympic Games (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) John Hargreaves and Manuel Garcia Ferrando, Public Opinion, National Integration and Identity in Spain: The Case of the Barcelona Olympic Games, Nations and Nationalism, 3, no. 1 (1997): F. Xavier Hernàndez, The History of Catalonia (Barcelona: Dalmau, 2007) Temma Kaplan, Red City, Blue Period: Social Movements in Picasso s Barcelona (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) Tim Marshall ed., Transforming Barcelona (London: Routledge, 2004) Gary Wray McDonogh, Barcelona: Forms, Images, and Conflicts, Journal of Urban History 20 (2010): 1-7. Gary Wray McDonogh, Good Families of Barcelona: A Social History of Power in the Industrial Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) Francisco-Javier Monclús, The Barcelona Model: and an Original formula? From Reconstruction to Strategic Urban Projects ( ), 18, no. 4 (2003): Roser Nicolau-Nos and Josep Pujol-Andreu, "Urbanization and Dietary Change in Europe: Barcelona, ," in Food and the City in Europe since 1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (original edition, 1952; multiple editions available).

10 10 José Luis Oyón, The Split of a Working-Class City: Urban Space, Immigration, and Anarchism in Inter-War Barcelona, , Urban History 36 (2009): Oriol Pi-Sunyer, Under Four Flags: The Politics of National Identity in the Barcelona Olympics, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 18, no. 1 (1995): William H. Robinson, Jordi Falgàs, and Carmen Belen Lord, eds. Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí. (New Haven, CT: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2007). J. Romero Maura, Terrorism in Barcelona and its Impact on Spanish Politics, , Past and Present, 41 (1968): Peter G. Rowe, Building Barcelona: A Second Renaixença (Barcelona: Actar, 2006) Michael Seidman, Work and Revolution: Worker s Control in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, Journal of Contemporary History, 17, no. 3 (1982): Angel Smith ed. Red Barcelona: Social Protest and Labour Mobilization in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2002) J.K.J. Thomson, A Distinctive Industrialization: Cotton in Barcelona, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) Ricard Zapata-Barrero, "Immigration, Self-Government and Management of Identity: The Catalan Case," in The Long March to the West: 21st Century Migration in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean Area, ed. Michael Korinman and John Laughland (London: Vallentine, Mitchell and Co., 2007), Last revised, June 2017